Culottes Style Ideas

Culottes are one of the biggest trends for spring/summer 2017

Culottes are one of the biggest trends for spring/summer 2017 but we'd be lying if we said we didn't find them hard to style.

If you're anything like the stylist team, you haven't worn culottes since you were in the Brownies and had to don the obligatory uniform of brown culottes and a mustard yellow jumper.

Luckily, these short-trouser hybrids have come a long way since then. This season's culottes, as demonstrated on the runways of Gucci and Valentino, are a thing of wonder that can actually be extremely flattering.

They have a great feminist backstory too, having become popular in Victorian England for allowing daring ladies to secretly wear shorts while it looked like they were wearing skirts.

The humble culottes, or 'divided skirts', were trousers in disguise that let these women ride horses and play tennis without flashing their knickers.